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estimate that the Jews of his day numbered “about ten million people
around the world.”^160
Malul’s concise presentation of “the Israelite religion” aims, in a num-
ber of ways, to prove that Judaism and Jews are not to be feared by
arabs. First of all, Jews are monotheists, just like Christians and Mus-
lims; indeed, theirs was the very first monotheistic religion. the Jews,
moreover, are a people of the Book, an ahl al- kitāb, and their Bible, the
first scripture of its kind, guides their actions. Malul’s appeal to ash-
Shahrastani is certainly curious. While it highlights Malul’s familiarity
with certain medieval Islamic literature, it also may be part of his ar-
gument that Jews have been known to Muslims for centuries, and their
religion was generally not viewed as any sort of threat. Finally, Malul
at once acknowledges the Jews’ history in palestine but also emphasizes
both their dispersion and their relatively small population. especially
when compared to the demographic estimates Malul offers later for
Christians and Muslims, the implication may well be that Jews hardly
merit anxiety.
Malul then moves from the relatively secure terrain of Judaism to
the more sensitive topics (for a Jewish author) of christianity and
islam. in his presentation of christianity, Malul is keen from the first
line to show the religion’s close relationship to Judaism, an eagerness
similar to that of Moyal in at- Talmūd. “the Christian religion,” Malul
writes, “was founded from the Israelite and it spread initially among
the Jews and then among the rest of the nations.” the primary prin-
ciple of Christianity, he explains, is “that people are brothers and God
is the father of all humanity.” Like the other religions, Christianity de-
mands that the faithful act kindly and it prohibits evil. In obvious par-
allel to his presentation of Judaism’s holy texts and its factions, Malul
explains that “the rules and teachings of this religion are based on the
Four Gospels, the Book of acts, and the epistles,” and that “Christian-
ity is broadly divided into two churches: the eastern and the western.”
Finally, he notes that the christians are at present “about five hundred
million” in number.^161
entering the more precarious territory of Islam— given Muslims’ po-
litical power and the fact that Muslims constituted the majority of the
population in the societies in which this text would be read— Malul
begins his presentation gingerly with a literal definition of the word
islam: “ ‘docility,’ ‘submission,’ ‘obedience’ to the commands and pro-
hibitions of the commander without objection.” again, in parallel to
(^160) Ibid.
(^161) ibid., 14– 15.